If you remember about a month ago, Blizzard had a press event at their offices in Irvine, CA and we got some of the multiplayer details shortly after, now we have details from the single-player campaign surfacing and early this morning media outlets were allowed to release the details of what they played. As we already know Blizzard is releasing StarCraft II in three seperate parts, beginning with the Terran campaign, dubbed Wings of Liberty which is scheduled to be released in 2010.
Single-Player
You may remember when we talked about the details of the single-player campaign in 2007, when this was discussed at BlizzCon. Many of those features seem to have made it into this build of the game as the campaigns start off differently then in the original game. In a similar style to old adventure games you can explore the various venues as there are click able objects and NPCs that you can interact with and have dialog with. This also opens up side quests that are used to 'unlock' units for that campaign. For those players who don't care for the storyline, they are able to blast through the campaign, only completing the essential missions. Reading the impressions also, it seems as if there are a lot more variety in the missions, with more missions having escort or protecting a unit or group of units in their objectives rather than just straight building up and attacking.
Also brand new with StarCraft II is the introduction of money, not minerals, but money that you can accumulate and use during mission briefings to hire mercenaries, you have to build a building (similar to WarCraft III) and purchase it for minerals/gas in mission (similar to hero characters in StarCraft and WarCraft III, this is NOT in multiplayer). These mercenaries are lost for that mission if they die, but can be bought again in subsequent missions.
Multiplayer
G4TV talked with Dustin Browder and revealed some new information about multiplayer where they are trying to make the game more accessible to players (please wait on comments and read the rest, I know you're ready to flame!). There are some really great details in these quotes so read carefully, and maybe you can get some of your non-StarCraft friends into it!
"You know, maybe you should try this casual league. There’s no rushing on these maps, by the way, we’ve blocked everything off and made these maps just really no fun for the hardcore guys, but really fun for you, right, because you’re scared of being rushed. Play on that one a little bit, and oh, by the way, here’s a score screen with some really relevant stats. Hey, there’re some challenges, you should try these.”
These changes are put in to allow new players to slowly be integrated into the game, and these don't effect other players at all as you can choose how you want to play and this won't affect professional play either. As far as StarCraft II as an eSport though, I think this could hopefully help get more people into competitive play and make it less nerve racking to just jump in and lose in 4 minutes and have no clue what you did wrong.
New Videos
Be sure to read all the details over with our friends over at StarCraft Legacy and to treat you, here is the cinematic for Zeratul/Kerrigan Campaign which is to be revealed at BlizzCon:
When you're done reading SCL's coverage (and all their video coverage as well) be sure to check out all the press info (just beware that some of the coverage may contain spoilers to the storyline, proceed at your own risk):
- 1UP
- Kotaku
- Destructoid
- Gamespy
- IGN
Links
StarCraft Legacy - Source
G4TV.com - Source
